"Data walls" are helping teachers and staff at Ruben S. Torres Elementary School identify strengths and weaknesses in student performance as part of ongoing "Making the Grade" efforts by Deming Public Schools.

Each elementary school in the district is using similar strategies to increase student proficiency in Reading and Mathematics, but individual schools are adapting the methods to best work for their respective student and teacher populations.

At Ruben S. Torres, Principal Connie Maag and instructional leader Roxi Marin were found studying two boards on the wall covered in small colored squares — their Data Wall. The squares include the name of a child who has shown skill deficit, the area(s) needing improvement and other data to help chart the student. The squares provide an in depth view of where students fall by grade.

As Maag explained, the squares clearly show there is a huge jump for students from first to second grade with regard to the reading and phonetics tested with DIBELS State Reading Assessment. She said that in first grade, students typically concentrate more on reading one syllable regular and nonsense words but in second grade, they transition into the larger ideas of reading such as the speed of reading and the quality of reciting what they read.

"You also have to build their oral language skills to help students transition into reading, which transfers into their writing skills," she added.

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Deficits are discovered when a student takes a standardized test and teachers and other staff are able to analyze the scores and compare to the rest of those in his or her grade level. Once a deficit is discovered, a collaboration of teachers work to provide the best intervention possible for the student to stop the deficit before the student falls behind even more. For instance, if a student can't read short vowel words like can and rat we can work on this skill before they have to read long vowel words like cape, and like.

"Now that we see we're broken, we can begin to fix it," she said. "Each year, if these gaps aren't filled, it keeps increasing."

With the data charted, the colorful squares present a clear pattern: Generally, students enter kindergarten low, thrived by the end of kindergarten, and then began struggling again when they are halfway through first grade. She points to that "jump" students make between kindergarten and third grades as the reason students begin struggling.

"The higher the grade, the more interventions are being set up," she added.

Marin credited the general success of students in Kindergarten to the K-3 Plus program, which gives students in kindergarten through third grade the opportunity to have five additional weeks of schooling before the traditional school year begins. Many kindergartners start the school year not knowing how to use a pencil, or how to spell and recognize their name. The K-3 Plus Program offers in coming kindergartners a jumpstart before the school year officially starts. Students can continue to get this jumpstart and participate in the K-3 Plus Program through the third grade.

But the approach to help students "make the grade" covers all students with deficits, not just those who attended the K-3 Plus program.

"Teachers will address skill deficits by providing interventions aligned to the skill gap. Then they will then monitor the student's progress using a directly aligned progress monitoring tool," Marin said. For example, if the skill deficit is letter naming fluency then a directly aligned intervention would be "Roll and Read a Letter", where the student rolls a die and reads a row corresponding to the number rolled of random letters. The directly aligned progress monitoring tool would be the letter naming fluency one minute test, where the student has one minute to point to random letters and receives a score based on accuracy.

Teachers meet on a weekly basis to discuss the intervention strategies and progress students are making.

"To see quality results, it's probably going to take at least six weeks," Maag added.

If a student's skill deficits are labeled as "intensive" a second time, a special support team is created to concentrate on the student's performance and help improve it.

Additionally, to help students who struggle with reading or are at risk of failing in other areas, the school uses a model called Guided Language Acquisition Design, or GLAD, to provide additional support. Project GLAD is an instructional model with clear, practical strategies promoting positive, effective interactions among students and between teachers and students. Project GLAD develops student thinking at a high level in academic language and literacy. The program uses current topics relevant to Science and Social Studies to help the student. Interactive photos, symbols, body movements, anchor charts, and chants are utilized to ensure the student can learn without having to struggle with reading words and sentences.

Aside from the teachers and administrative staff who help students make the grade, the school also has a reading interventionist, Joanna Cristo, and a math interventionist, Ramona Crossland. With a combination of data, technology, hard work and dedication to all students, Maag feels school-wide performance will increase and more students will be shown to be "making the grade."

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